Reminds me of an episode where Granny is talking about how the south won the war.
Jethro: “But Granny, the south got whooped.”
Granny: “I’ll whip you…”
I was under the impression that many of the landowners prospered even more under the sharecropper system. Slaves were valuable property, with substantial overhead costs. Plus, the owner was responsible for him for life. Which is why the very dangerous work was contracted to irish immigrants. As I meant to say in my previous post, but messed up, cash crops were the few remaining fields that slaves were still profitable.
Sharecroppers, were essentially agricultural contractors, responsible to themselves. They had little power to set the price of the crop to the landowner, plus assumed more of the risk of financial loss.
Replaced with plastic Port-A-Potties. We’re modernizing!
Heh–did I ever tell you about the time I told two Southerner’s in a bar that I lumped them together with the dreaded Yankees? Not one of my more brilliant moments, I can tell you…
It was my impression that with the post-war deflation of agricultural goods (the non-machine stuff … i.e. stuff that didn’t come from the north), combined with the total devastation to the south and the whole notion of having to pay more to get the same product out … all these factors contributed enormously to a rapid loss of money for those heavily into farming.
Couple this with the agricultural products coming from overseas (esp., but not restricted to, South America and Middle America) and at lower price/cost than the farmers in the south of our country could produce, and it was a very bad trainwreck of an economic situation that lasted a while. And I feel in some ways they are still recovering from it. I mean, how many years did it take us to recover from one day of stock crashing in the 20s? This was 40+ YEARS, not a few weeks;)
I think the point that sometimes gets missed in analyses of post-Civil War economies and problems with such is the very fact that we did have so much coming in from other places. Much Civil War analysis is done in a very strong isolationist way (by which I mean “not paying much attention to other countries”), which I think is fairly appropriate. However, I think equally strongly it is rather inaccurate and incomplete to continue to exclude the foreign markets when discussing post-Civil War economies especially as our own was so affected by them:)
If you’re interested I can look up and pull some quotes from my current college text on this matter (it’s more of a survey class than a class focusing on the sole period 1840 or so to … I would guess 1910?;)) … it’s a nice refreshing thing to see a class being taught in The South that doesn’t talk about The Northern Aggression but The Civil War. The bias, if there is one (and it tends to be a little revisionist for my tastes, as the latter bits of history are smattered in various places with “and women and minorities were also doing things at this time as well” instead of incoroprating them into the book from the get-go), is actually a bit Northern. Fancy that:)
The persistence of Confederate apologists/historical revisionists is a relatively small-scale irritant that occasionally has embarassing consequences on a wider scale (i.e. Trent Lott) when people question whether such backward attitudes are influencing current thinking.
Slavery over? Great. Union preserved? Excellent. Persistent regrets over outcome of war? Unfathomable.
But, unless anyone else just wants to insult me for general reasons, I’ll stop ranting. And if my allergy pill ever starts working, I’ll go outside and enjoy the sunshine and reflect on the good things that do hold most of us together.
Astros – beautiful, beautiful! You are a sensitive soul.
Iampunha, I’m grateful that someone more knowledgeable than I was able to explain how the war has affected Southern economy.
I remain proud of my Southern heritage (traditions) except for the horrible element of slavery. And yes, it is sacred ground to me because it is home. My pride is not the hooping and hollering kind. There is more to the South than sitting on the porch and “longing for our Negras to come back.”
NoClueBoy said:
Abolutely! And that attitude is as bigoted and ignorant as racism.
They were drunker than I so I was able to explain I was from Wyoming before they got all belligerant on me. But it was pretty iffy there for a few moments, I can tell you!
A few select quotes from “America and it Peoples; A Mosaic in the Making” Fourth Edition:
“By the time Congress passed the Homestead Act in 1862, most of the arable land east pf tjhe Mississippi was already taken. The established farmers of the Old Northeast adapted fairly well to the changing economy and were generally prosperous. Most did not try to compete with the new wheat and corn areas of the West. Instead they turned their efforts to supplying the rapidly growing urban areas with fresh vegetables, dairy products, poultry and pigs. They also benefited from rising land values by selling extra acres to residential and industrial developers at high prices. Although they may not have liked all the changes, most received a reasonable share of the fruits of economic expansion. The same could not be said for many farmers in the West and South.”
Also:
“In the South, the Civil War had crippled agriculture. Wartime devastation destroyed half the region’s farm equipment and killed one third of its draft animals. The death of slavery also ended the plantation system. The number of farms doubled from 1860 to 1880, but the number of landowners remained the same. … A shortage of cash forced Southern farmers to borrow against future crops. Crop liens and high credit costs kept a lot of black and white farmers trapped in a cycle of debt and poverty.”
There is a graph on the next page of the percent of all people in a state who were farmers. In 1880, only one state had more than 50% farmers. In 1900, 6 did, and only one was non-southern (Delaware). Now, I’m no economist, but if half of your population is essentially either losing money or not making much back, you’re not going to be pouring much money into your local markets and such things.
The point is noted. It’s still a mystery what it really has to do with the complaint made in the OP, which can be summarized as:
*“They are protesting a statue of Lincoln in Richmond Virginia. WTF is their problem. It was a horrible war, but most people in the south do not see Lincoln as an evil aggressor. *”
Maybe there are some people who continue fighting the Civil War on behalf of the Confederacy as a response to what they see as pervasive stereotyping of Southerners. If that’s the case, it’s an amazingly counterproductive strategy.
Because the next four posts after the OP had little to do with the OP either, they were just plain old Southern bashing stereotyping of one degree or another.
Then, when I (and some others) came to the defense of what I see as the real South, I was argued with.
I didn’t start the hijack, but I sure did contribute to it, for I felt (in all my wisdom) that it was needed.
If you’ll notice, my 2nd post in this thread addressed the OP but was pretty much ignored.
I have never denied my dipshitness. However, I’m also right. Far from being a disaster for the country that the United States won the war, its victory accomplished three important things:
It ended chattel slavery and extended civil rights to a large percentage of the population that had been legally been denied basic rights as human beings.
It discredited the idea of secession, which is undemocratic and ultimately destructive to the development of national unity
It damaged the economic and political power of the big planter families, who had dominated Southern economic and political life, enfranchising for the first time, not only blacks, as referenced in number 1, but also poor whites, who, up to the war, had no voice at all in the political process.
So, the victory by the United states, far from harming the nation, was a victory for the American ideal, and helped America become closer to the ideals behind its founding.
I think you need to reread the three posts you are complaining about (the fourth was yours).
All were criticisms aimed at Civil War revisionists, not “plain old Southern bashing”. For instance, take Guin’s post questioning the racial attitudes of someone who would term both Lincoln and MLK as evil.
Since Confederate apologists are an increasingly small minority of Southerners, bashing the former cannot be construed as an assault on the latter.
WOW! Your rolleye smily said all that? I’m gonna have to get to get a rolleye to english dictionary.
Yes, slavery needed to be ended. The War damaged America.
Hey, I realize my views may not be as centered as some of you seem to think yours are, they’re still my views.
I apologize to Muffin for misreading your intent.
To everyone else, I would like see an end to all predjudice and narrow-mindedness, even my own. The arguement this thread has turned out to be isn’t the way to do it. I apologize for my part in this fruitless endeavor.
The counting error was funny, tho, I lumped my own post into my semi-flame.
